Doña Ana County to get $2.8M to help residents with mental illness

A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says suicide rates have climbed between 1999 and 2016 everywhere. In fewer than half of the cases, the person who died had a mental health diagnosis.(Photo: KatarzynaBialasiewicz, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

LAS CRUCES - Doña Ana County will receive a $2.8 million federal grant to help residents with serious mental illnesses, county and state officials announced Thursday.

The money, hailed by mental health advocates, will pay to implement assisted-outpatient treatment, in which a state judge can mandate that someone receive outpatient mental health services.

A law spearheaded by state Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, was passed this year to allow mandatory outpatient treatment. But lacking — until now — was a significant pool of money to carry it out.

Papen agreed the grant is a "missing piece." Without the new funding, there were some entities that could have carried out aspects of outpatient treatment, she said, but not on the scale they'll be able to with the award.

"It's another tool in the tool box that helps people be able to stay on their medication, stay in the programs and to do what it takes to remain stable," said Papen, a mental health care advocate in the Legislature. "This means we'll be able to do a good program. We're very hopeful and very grateful to get the money."

Doña Ana County government is slated to receive $700,000 per year for four years from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, money that likely will be distributed among the county, the courts, local mental health providers and other agencies involved in carrying out the program, county officials said.

The aim is to serve about 30 to 40 residents per year who repeatedly find themselves involuntarily hospitalized or jailed because of incidents stemming from their mental illness, officials said. Any court-mandated action through the program will be on the civil side, not the criminal, county officials said.

"It's not a punishment or a pathway to jail by any means," said Doña Ana County Health and Human Services Director Jamie Michael. "There really has to be a history of documented noncompliance and negative consequences associated with it. We're not talking about a large number of people, but people who probably use a disproportionate share of resources and very intense services."

The county first received notice of the federal award on Wednesday, Michael said. She credited collaboration among several organizations, including New Mexico State University and La Clinica de Familia, which provides mental health services to low-income residents, as a key factor in the award. And Papen, by spearheading the legislation, also played a significant role.

"If Senator Papen had not put this in place, we would not have been eligible to apply for this money, and we wouldn't have an additional resource to help people," Michael said.

The new law — Senate Bill 113, which was signed by the governor in March — orders patients to participate in assisted outpatient treatment if the court finds that the patients are a danger to themselves and others. The legislation was compared to New York’s Kendra’s law. That bill was named after a Kendra Webdale, a 32-year-old woman who was pushed in front of an oncoming New York subway train in 1999 by a man battling untreated schizophrenia. Civil rights proponents have argued against the measure in New Mexico.

Prior to the new law, state district court judges could order full-fledged hospitalization for people in the throes of a mental health episode. But ordering outpatient treatment — a less-intense intervention that's aimed at keeping people from being hospitalized — wasn't among the legal options.

Ron Gurley of Las Cruces, a longtime mental health advocate, said opponents of the outpatient-treatment legislation successfully sought a lot of amendments to the bill before it passed. Because of the requirements contained in the legislation, he said he had his doubts that a program would be implemented. However, money on the scale of the recent federal grant helps to overcome those complexities.

"It's going to be difficult, but we can make it work," he said. "Without resources, it would never happen."

Gurley said he sees some potential for the program to also work in tandem with a veterans court that has been proposed for Doña Ana County. Veterans are among those struggling with mental illnesses.

"Things like this, they have lasting benefits," he said of the grant.

In addition to NMSU and LCDF, a news release from the state Senate also noted the 3rd Judicial District Court, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Doña Ana Chapter, 3rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office, Mesilla Valley Hospital and Doña Ana County government also worked on the grant application. A representative of The Treatment Advocacy Center in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit that seeks improvements in mental health care systems, also assisted.

The county must sign a grant agreement with the federal government. After that, the program can be launched.

"I'm hoping by the first of the year, we get the paperwork in place and by spring we're ready to go," Michael said. "That would be my hope, my intent."

Several onlookers said the nearly $3 million award is a significant step — though not a cure-all — to major challenges facing the mental-health care system across the county.

County Commission Chairman Wayne Hancock said he was "really, really pleased" to learn about the grant award. It will be a "great start" to help implement the outpatient treatment program, he said.

"It's going to take a lot more money than $700,000 a year" to solve all of the problems, he said. "But it (the grant) lets us put into place a lot of the elements that can help reduce overall costs and make the quality of life in Doña Ana County much better. I think when everybody starts seeing that, they'll realize this is something we need to focus on."

Continued Hancock: "It's kick-starter money, and it will really, really make a difference in the community."